In my own experience as a medical educator presenting Ophthalmology I often use my clinical cases to support the presented material and initiate discussion highliting key points and mystakes, etc.

Often, students with learning problems are related to issues of abstraction. Therefore, it is key that easily relate this knowledge to be acquired with the concrete reality. The techniques and their practical applications, can help heal properly pedagogical objectives.

Thanks Marianne and Federico for your suggestions. Initially though how would you identify students at risk - what criteria would you use to judge whether a student is low in resilience?

I have no criteria, but initially I encourage everybody from students telling them that I imagine every presenting person as my tomorrow colleague- practicing physician to active participate in open discussion

And how do you understand who is facing problems related to resilience? Some students are reluctant to contribute to discussions or reveal intimate things about themselves that might be of help in understanding their level of resilience.

Recent exploration of student's results from a study of student wellbeing conducted at UNSW included measures of psychological distress, life satisfaction and psychological flexibility. Results indicate that approximately 50% of students were experiencing quite severe symptoms of psychological distress and approximately 40% demonstrated low to very poor psychological flexibility.

Embedding small teaching moments that highlight skills related to psychological flexibility could offer awareness and skills to the whole class cohort. No need to discriminate as to who really needs the awareness and skills. Develop the whole cohort awareness and the very needy will benefit. Mental Health First Aid Training for university teachers greatly enhances the 'in time' support for 'at risk' students.

At UNSW some colleagues and I have established a 'community of practice' around this topic and Assoc Professor Jacquelyn Cranney and her colleagues in the UNSW School of Psychology have developed a very well recieved curriculum on success and resilience.

Let me know if you would like to join our community of practice.

Hi Annie, thanks for your reply, yes I would be interested in the community of practice you mentioned. Please do send me some more details.

Hi Christothea,

Love to have you join us...All the details following here:

In this community of practice we are exploring the key ingredients that influence resilience and success whilst at university as well as in life beyond the academic community.Some key concepts include psychological literacy and psychological flexibility. This list establishes a communication tool for an e-community of practice of professionals interested in this topic.

You can manage your own membership of this e-list via:

https://www.lists.unsw.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/resilience-success-network

You will get more info in a welcome message.

That's great!Thanks a lot!

Dear Christothea,

While the evidence is mixed, I suggest that you look into the Penn Resilience Programme. This was a psychological intervention developed for use in schools (on students aged 12-years old, ideally) to improve wellbeing. The results of the study vary depending on whether they are administered by teachers, psychologists, or specialists from the Penn Resilience Programme. However, there is some significant evidence that the delivery of these early programmes can have a preventive influence on the development of psychopathology later in life.

I have attached some material that you may find helpful.

Maxim von Sabler.

Teachers can learn mindfulness based stress reduction themselves and then teach to their students. Jon Kabitt Zinn has a bit of research going on in this area.